Skyscript Astrology Forum

Therese Hamilton wrote:A number of western tropical astrologers (such as Robert Hand) now remove precession from their revolutions (solar returns) as they see these charts do a better job of highlighting relevant planets for the year. The Moon, of course will be the biggest change between tropical and sidereal revolutions.

After the houses, you mean?

Martin Gansten wrote:

Therese Hamilton wrote:A number of western tropical astrologers (such as Robert Hand) now remove precession from their revolutions (solar returns) as they see these charts do a better job of highlighting relevant planets for the year. The Moon, of course will be the biggest change between tropical and sidereal revolutions.

After the houses, you mean?

Yes, I was thinking of the relative longitudes of planets. Since the time of day or the day itself changes between the tropical and sidereal returns, planets in houses, especially angular planets will be different. So tropical and sidereal revolutions can highlight different planets for the year. Also Fagan school astrologers will look to see if solar return planets aspect or conjoin planets in the natal chart, especially those close to angles.

I am not sure how tropical astrologers read solar return charts, but I suspect they use a number of diverse approaches. Sidereal astrologers (following Fagan) will generally agree on methods for reading these charts.

....If this is what you meant by your question, Martin?

Martin wrote:

...I, too, have spent much time looking for a simple system dividing the year neatly into periods, using both 'western' and Indian methods (there is no lack of them in Tajika sources), and sometimes I've thought I've found it, but it's always ended in disappointment.

I should mention a cyclic chart Donald Bradley discovered shortly before his death. This chart is discussed in James Eshelman's Interpreting Solar Returns (reprinted ACS Publications, 1985). This is the Ennead chart or ninth harmonic division (40 day chart) of the revolution. This chart can be quite amazing. Like the solar return chart itself, it references the natal chart.

If the solar return chart suggests a major event or period, this event is invariably shown in the Ennead that repeats the solar return angles.

The Ennead is the most accurate cyclic chart I've found in many years of study and experimentation. But to read it easily it's necessary to see the chart and its angles encircling the diagram of the natal chart. That is, the natal chart is placed inside the Ennead chart and its angles.

Konrad's Ennead for the present period, which began 6 July repeats his natal angles within a few minutes. So there is the highlighted revolution Mars influencing these angles and any planets located there if the degree orb is close (which in this case, it is.)

Thanks, Therese. If there's a good place online to read about this technique, please feel free to post a link.

Martin Gansten wrote:Thanks, Therese. If there's a good place online to read about this technique, please feel free to post a link.

Martin, our posts crossed while I was adding notes about Konrad's Ennead. Are you asking about the Ennead? If you mean that chart, I can perhaps put together a small article for my web site with examples. But I'll check first to see if there is anything online.

I have no more computer time at the moment. Later today I can post one or two of Victoria's significant Enneads with her natal chart.

Therese Hamilton wrote:Martin, our posts crossed while I was adding notes about Konrad's Ennead. Are you asking about the Ennead? If you mean that chart, I can perhaps put together a small article for my web site with examples. But I'll check first to see if there is anything online.

Yes, I meant the Ennead as a method of finding astrologically meaningful periods within a year.

Here is the natal chart for Queen Victoria followed by the Ennead of the 40 day period covering the death of her husband.
This is Victoria?s Ennead (40 day chart) for the death of her husband. Her natal chart is on the inner wheel, and the Ennead and its cusps are on the outer wheel. As emphasized by Fagan school astrologers, angular planets are the most active. Note:

Victoria?s natal 8th house is Sagittarius which contains Neptune and Uranus. These two planets straddle the 7th cusp (husband) in the Ennead. The transiting Sun is in the 7th approaching Uranus. (In many cases I?ve see Uranus active at the time of death.) So we have the natal 8th house of death falling in the Ennead 7th.

The M.C. in the Ennead is conjunct Victoria?s natal Jupiter, lord of the 8th. (And dispositor of Uranus-Neptune-Pluto-Saturn) This is an interesting picture for those who don?t use the outer planets. Then we have only a double Saturn angular in the Ennead chart. In India's astrology Jupiter is both a malefic and a maraka (death inflicting planet) for a Taurus ascendant.

Transiting Jupiter (transiting 8th lord) is on the nadir with Saturn.

Note also Victoria's ascendant cluster of planets in the Ennead 12th house of misfortune and loss. (Though natally the 12th can be an active house.)

Then we also have natal Pluto and Saturn on the 10th cusp, activated by transiting Neptune. Albert?s death had a profound effect on Victoria?s public persona and rule as she retreated into mourning.

This Ennead is probably the most significant in Victoria?s life, and this is shown by the multiple conjunctions of planets on three angles of the chart. A principle of some Jyotish texts states that planets in one house affect the other houses in the same triangle of houses. (I?ve seen Jyotish astrologers interpret houses in this way.) This reflects triplicity rulerships in Hellenistic astrology as well as lunar mansions in trine to each other with the same governing planet.

Thus Victoria?s Saturn-Pluto in the 11th at the appropriate time will act to influence both the 7th and 3rd houses. These planets are strongly angular in the Ennead for the period when Albert died. (Or Saturn can be considered alone if an astrologer does not use Pluto.)

Similarly Victoria?s Venus ruled Taurean Sun and exalted Moon on the ascendant contributed to her fertility in bearing nine children, as this combination influences her 5th house. There is also the trine from 9th house Jupiter influencing both the 1st and 5th houses as well. (Remembering that the triplicity lords of this trigon are the Moon and Venus.)

Personal anecdote related to trinal influence on houses: One of my daughters never wanted to marry. An astrologer from India told her when she was a teenager what she would marry because Jupiter in the 3rd aspected her 7th house which had no planets. She did marry a man when she was in her mid 40s, primarily because he wanted to marry her as she still had no special desire to marry. (I?m using equal house cusps with house influence on both sides of the cusp.)

This is Victoria's marriage Ennead (pronounced "any add.")

In this chart there is only one angular configuration from the natal chart, and that is Mars, Victoria?s 7th house lord with Rahu. The natal pair of Mars and Rahu (Rahu probably does really have to do with relationships.) and Victoria?s ascendant lord Venus fall in the 4th house with transiting Pluto sitting squarely on Mars.

Not only does Mars rule the natal 7th, but in those days marriage was a sexual initiation for most women. This may also be why the 8th sign rises in the Ennead, as the 8th is the natural house of Scorpio and Scorpio?s part of the body.

Mercury rising may signify the marriage contract. Mercury is also the Ennead 7th lord. Mercury aspects natal Mars in the 4th. A Fagan school astrologer would mainly emphasize this planetary configuration. Transiting Pluto (new beginnings, a sudden change) conjoins 7th lord, Mars. Mars and Rahu are in Mercury?s mansion, perhaps to emphasize the importance of a royal marriage contract which is significant for an entire nation. The natal ascendant cluster in the 6th suggests this 40 day period as stressful for Victoria. (This is a strictly modern western type interpretation!)

The all important transiting Sun conjoins Victoria's natal M.C. a certain signature for a very significant public event.

So the 7th house ruler works out for this chart, and it can be noted that Ennead Venus and Saturn (two planets often present in marriage charts) transiting the natal 7th are trine the angular Mars-Rahu. So there is the harmonious coming together of Victoria?s ascendant lord Venus (with the responsibility of Saturn, 9th and 10th lord) with Mars, 7th lord. All the marriage symbolism is there, culminating in the 4th chart angle termed a chart foreground by sidereal astrologers.

In summary, the natal 7th-11th house trinal relationship is activated by transits in the marriage Ennead.

Thanks for the examples, Therese. What I primarily want to know, though, is very basic: how are these charts calculated? Is the Ennead just a chart for exactly 40 days after the revolution (using clock time?), which would leave us with 5 or so loose days at the end of the year, or how does it work?

Martin wrote:

What I primarily want to know, though, is very basic: how are these charts calculated? Is the Ennead just a chart for exactly 40 days after the revolution (using clock time?), which would leave us with 5 or so loose days at the end of the year, or how does it work?

The Enneads are a straight 9th harmonic division of the revolution, In the Solar Fire 5 program I have I ask for the 9th harmonic of each solar return, and the program will give me the nine Enneads for the year. Or one or two, however many I ask for. The calculation is based on the precise time the Sun returns to its natal position, that is, the degree and minute of the revolution Sun. So each Ennead is exactly one ninth of the solar year.

Every third month the Sun's position will be the degree and minute of the revolution Sun in a sign trine to that position. So in Victoria's marriage Ennead, the Sun is 10 Capricorn 53 whereas her natal Sun is 10 Taurus 53.

The pattern, of course is the navamsa division of signs of the zodiac.

Therese Hamilton wrote:The Enneads are a straight 9th harmonic division of the revolution, In the Solar Fire 5 program I have I ask for the 9th harmonic of each solar return, and the program will give me the nine Enneads for the year. Or one or two, however many I ask for. The calculation is based on the precise time the Sun returns to its natal position, that is, the degree and minute of the revolution Sun. So each Ennead is exactly one ninth of the solar year.

I'm sorry, but I still don't get it. The 9th harmonic of a single chart (the revolution) will still be a single chart. How do you get nine different ones?

Therese Hamilton wrote: The Enneads are a straight 9th harmonic division of the revolution, In the Solar Fire 5 program I have I ask for the 9th harmonic of each solar return, and the program will give me the nine Enneads for the year. Or one or two, however many I ask for. The calculation is based on the precise time the Sun returns to its natal position, that is, the degree and minute of the revolution Sun. So each Ennead is exactly one ninth of the solar year.

therese,

i am following your discussion on the enneads with great interest.. i have solar fire 7.3. but i am unable to generate the charts you are showing here in the program i have.. perhaps i am missing something.. solar fire will allow me to take a solar return and get the 9th harmonic off of it, but i see no option to have the year divided up into 9 enneads.. i use the option 'hamonics, transform, analogues, but i see no option to take it the future step you seem to have in solarfire 5..